























FEEBLE-MINDED 

ADRIFT 


REASONS WHY 

Massachusetts Needs a Third School 
for the Feeble-minded 

IMMEDIATELY 


I. THERE ARE 12,000 FEEBLE-MINDED IN MASSACHU¬ 
SETTS 

outside of State schools, thousands of whom unprotected and 
in need of institutional care are constantly drifting in and 
out of the overcrowded hospitals for the insane, alms¬ 
houses, prisons, and reformatories. 

II. SUCH INDISCRIMINATE AND OCCASIONAL CARE 

a. seriously clogs institutions designed for other purposes; 

b. only temporarily alleviates the immorality, crime, and 
suffering to which these unfortunates are victims, and 

c. does not prevent the transmission of their weakness to 
new generations. 

III. THE COST OF MAINTAINING THESE DRIFTING 

THOUSANDS 

in these institutions is higher per capita than it would be 
in special schools where many could be taught to be partially 
self-supporting. 

IV. A NEW STATE SCHOOL FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED 

WOULD 

a. afford them the best care and training at the lowest 
cost; 

b. effectively remove the immediate social evil and misery 
they cause; and 

c. absolutely prevent the birth of a new generation. 


League for Preventive Work 

Present Purpose: A Campaign to Lessen Feeble-mindedness 

APRIL, 1916 





v\^' 

League for Preventive Work 

Tresent Vurpose: A Campaign to Lessen 
Feeble-mindedness 


Room 704, Publicity Building, 44 Bromfield Street, 
Boston, Massachusetts 

Mrs. Isabelle Kendig Gill, Executive Secretary 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

Mrs. Ada E. Sheffield, Chairman 
James A. McMurry, Treasurer 

Miss Ida M. Cannon Miss Lina H. Frankenstein 

C. C. Carstens William H. Pear 

Rev. Christopher R. Eliot Rev. Michael J. Scanlan 
Mrs. Charles R. Talbot 


CONSTITUENT ORGANIZATIONS 


Associated Charities of Boston 
Boston Children’s Aid Society 
Boston Children’s Friend Society 
Boston Dispensary 
Boston Legal Aid Society 
Boston North End Mission 
Boston Provident Association 
Boston Society for the Care of 
Girls 

Catholic Charitable Bureau 
Children’s Mission to Children 
Church Home for Orphan and 
Destitute Children 
Federated Jewish Charities 
Instructive District Nursing 
Association 


Massachusetts General Hospital 
Social Service Department 

Massachusetts Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to 
Children 

Milk and Baby Hygiene Asso¬ 
ciation 

New England Home for Little 
Wanderers 

Society for Helping Destitute 
Mothers and Infants 

The Society of Saint Vincent de 
Paul 

Frederick E. Weber Charities 
Corporation 


1 «JU5Liia£X 

•' : im . r ■ 


FOREWORD 


T HE Massachusetts Legislature of 1915 made an ap¬ 
propriation of $50,000 for the purchase of land in the 
western part of the State for the establishment of a 
third school for the feeble-minded. The State Board of In¬ 
sanity, with whom rested the choice of a site for the proposed 
school, has purchased a tract of 880 acres of farm land in 
Belchertown. Meanwhile bills have been introduced in the 
present Legislature calling for an appropriation of $150,000 
annually over a period of five years, for the construction of 
buildings suitable to house one thousand inmates. 

According to the best available estimates there are approxi¬ 
mately twelve thousand feeble-minded in Massachusetts out¬ 
side of State schools. The great majority of these are unpro¬ 
tected in the community where their presence constitutes a 
problem so grave that on economic, as well as social grounds, 
the need for this immediate provision should be carefully con¬ 
sidered. These unprotected feeble-minded are very definitely 
represented by a constantly shifting group of 2,000 who drift 
in and out of the almshouses, hospitals for the insane, prisons, 
and reformatories of the State. A study of the histories of 
some of these unfortunates and their tragic experiences under 
present conditions will throw light on the problem of their care. 



THE PRESSURE OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED ON 
STATE INSTITUTIONS 


T HE feeble-minded whose stories are told on the following 
pages are all well known to the constituent agencies of 
the League for Preventive Work. These agencies, like 
others which help the unfortunate, have tried by every means 
in their power to give them protection in the community. 
But feeble-minded like these are too low grade to work, and 
too weak and vicious and sexually uncontrollable to adjust 
themselves to ordinary life. The various agencies interested, 
therefore, sought to secure their admission to Waverley or 
Wrentham, the Massachusetts schools for the feeble-minded. 
Both of these schools have long waiting lists, and admission was 
impossible. Finally because there was no other place for them 
they were sent to other public institutions, the State Infirmary, 
State hospitals for the insane, reformatories, or local alms¬ 
houses. These institutions, already overcrowded, are special¬ 
ized for very different work. To require them to give custodial 
care to the feeble-minded for months or years seriously multi¬ 
plies their problems of administration. Furthermore, it not 
only works an injustice to the other inmates and to the 
defectives themselves, but it is also absolutely useless as a 
protection to society. What these unfortunates need is not 
short term punishment or temporary hospital care, but training 
and directed work in a permanently protected environment. 
The following are examples of the many feeble-minded for 
whom public institutions are forced to care in this ineffective 
way. 

I. Feeble-minded Wards of the State Board 
of Charity 

The Division of State Minor Wards, November 30, 1915, 
was caring for 5,938 children. Of this number it is estimated 
that about 10% are feeble-minded, while others are the product 
of the marriage of defectives and may later show the hereditary 
taint. Some of them have been admitted to Waverley or 
Wrentham. Others are given custodial care at the State 
Infirmary. These are the low-grade, incorrigible, or sexually 



dangerous. The majority have to remain in the community, 
boarded in special foster homes, at heavy expense. However 
defective, unless commitment or segregation has been 
secured, at twenty-one all State wards must be discharged, 

including such as these: 


A Moral Pervert 1 . Dolly* is eleven. Her mother, a high-grade 
at Eleven defective, is nervous, irritable, and violent, 

and shows a strange antagonism to the child, 
whom she abuses and calls her “little prostitute”. All day long she 
lies in bed drugging herself, or walks the floor waving her arms and 
crying, while Dolly runs the streets. A married man supports them 
and because of his infatuation submits to abusive treatment from 
the woman. Recently Dolly became uncontrollable and was found 
to be feeble-minded and syphilitic. After the discovery that she was 
sexually abusing little boys in the neighborhood she was committed 
to the State Board of Charity. 

Eight Defectives, 2. In November the State Board of Charity 

the State’s Legacy was asked to care for the seven M-children. 

from One Feeble- Their father is a dull but fairly steady work- 
minded Woman man, their mother feeble-minded and immoral. 

Always slack and incompetent, she finally 
deserted her husband, and the children were boarded in various 
homes by the Overseers. Subsequently she gave birth to an illegiti¬ 
mate child for whom the State is also asked to care. Though the 
oldest is but fifteen these children are all showing signs of mental 
defect and three are definitely feeble-minded. 

A Mother with the 3. Two years ago the H-s were found living 

Mind of an Eight- in a broken-down shack in a strip of woods. 
Year Old Child The house had only a bedroom and kitchen 
and a loft reached by a rough pine ladder, 
where the father and older children slept. The rooms were filthy. 
The stove had lost its oven door. What food there was — for lack 
of a better place—lay on the table; potatoes and onions were piled 
in a corner. There was but one chair. The beds were on the floor. 
The windows had been boarded up or stuffed with rags. The eight 
black and grimy children, with heads and bodies covered with ver¬ 
min, were without underclothing and each wore but one loose, dirty 
garment. 

The father is a hardworking man who neither smokes nor drinks. 
His earnings amount to $20 a week, beside frequent gifts of furniture 
— chairs and beds and springs. All these, as well as the flooring itself, 
the mother has chopped up for kindling. She is feeble-minded and 
has only the mentality of a little child of seven or eight. Moreover, 
she comes of a long line of defectives. Her father and mother were 
first cousins. She has five sisters and two brothers, of whom but two 


*Only the names used in these illustrations are fictitious; the stories are true. 





are normal. One brother is alcoholic, one sister is “queer”. One is 
flagrantly immoral, and two are feeble-minded. They are all mar¬ 
ried, and one of the defective sisters has borne two idiot children. 
The father’s family is of better grade, though he himself has always 
been regarded as a religious fanatic and somewhat “queer”. His 
brother is also “queer”, and a sister suffers from the delusion that she is 
being chased by a German spy. Of their own children the two eldest 
are high-grade imbeciles. The five younger children, the baby having 
died, were found neglected and committed to the State Board of 
Charity in February. No protection is available for the mother. 


II. Feeble-minded in the State Infirmary 

This institution provides for the indigent, sick, and infirm 
not chargeable for support to any city or town. The 

capacity is 2,336. During the year 1915 the daily 
average population was 2,601 — an excess of 265, or 11.3%. 
Despite this great overcrowding, during the past winter 
there have been more than two hundred feeble-minded in 
the institution. The following instances are illustrative: 

An Unmarried 4. Annie is a feeble-minded woman of 
Mother twenty-nine who has had three illegitimate 

children. The first the State took after she 
had abandoned it; the second was adopted by a family who abused 
and neglected it; the last, born in 1914, has died at the State In¬ 
firmary, where mother and baby were placed when mental tests 
showed that Annie has only the intelligence of a nine year old child. 
She must remain at the Infirmary until she can be admitted to 
Wrentham or Waverley. 

Too Low Grade 5. Lizzie, now twenty-four, became pregnant 
to Work soon after she came to this country and was 

sent to the State Infirmary for confinement. 
When she was strong again friends found her a place where she could 
work with her baby. But she was unable to learn to do the simplest 
tasks. She could not cook or build a fire, and when she found the 
cover off the teakettle she tried to nail it on. Finally she was ex¬ 
amined and pronounced feeble-minded and in need of custodial care. 
Since Wrentham and Waverley were both crowded she was sent 
back to the Infirmary, where she has remained for a year and a half, 
awaiting a vacancy. 

Street Walker 6. Ella is a colored girl of twenty-one whose 
and Prostitute passionate nature and feeble mentality have 
led her from one institution to another. When 
she was but fourteen her first illegitimate baby was born. Two 
years later, by another man, she gave birth to a stillborn child at 
the State Infirmary. Shortly after this she was transferred to the 


Town Almshouse. Here she falsely accused the men working in the 
house of indecent relations with her. At the end of three years she 
ran away and was seen in a nearby town walking the streets late at 
night and consorting with low companions. Finally she drifted into 
a house of ill fame. Such a menace was she to the community that 
last February she was committed to a State Hospital, as there was 
no vacancy in Wrentham or Waverley. Here, however, she was 
found to be pregnant for the third time and so has returned to the 
State Infirmary for confinement. 


III. Feeble-minded in State Hospitals for 
the Insane 

There are twelve State hospitals and colonies for the 
insane in Massachusetts. All of them, despite the overcrowd¬ 
ing, have their quota of feeble-minded. Some, feeble-minded 
from birth, have developed symptoms of insanity which made 
their commitment, or transfer, from Waverley or Wrentham 
even, imperative. But many without such symptoms have 
been committed solely for custodial care. The following table 
showing the number of feeble-minded in the various hospitals 
was compiled by Dr. A. Warren Stearns, in April, 1915, and 
holds approximately true for this year: 


NUMBER OF FEEBLE-MINDED IN THE MASSACHUSETTS 
HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE 


Worcester State Hospital.36 

Taunton State Hospital.49 

Northampton State Hospital .88 

Danvers State Hospital.51 

Westborough State Hospital . . 42 

Boston State Hospital .38 

Grafton State Hospital.15 

Medfield State Hospital.37 

Gardner State Colony .51 

State Infirmary.68 

Bridgewater State Hospital.50 

Foxborough State Hospital. 7 

Total.620 


These 520 feeble-minded are 3.6% of the total State 
Hospital enrollment and 18.9% of the number in Waverley and 
Wrentham. Among them are such cases as these: 
















Sets Fires in the 7. The mother of the J — family is ap- 

Neighborhood parently feeble-minded, but when brought 

into court on a charge of neglect she was per¬ 
mitted to keep her children. The older ones already show degenerate 
tendencies. Cyril has been sent to an Industrial School. Cora, fifteen 
years old, is repeating third grade. She seems to be without sense of 
right and wrong, and steals constantly. At eighteen, Elsie set fire to 
the barn of the house where she worked, and confessed indifferently 
to that and several other fires in the neighborhood. She also told of 
frequent immoral intercourse, but when examined showed no evidence 
of it. Tests proved her feeble-minded, and because she was so 
dangerous she was committed to a State hospital where she has been 
for two years. 

A Community 8. Hester’s husband divorced her a month 

Plague Spot after their marriage, and the following year 

she had her first illegitimate child, Ralph. A 
second was stillborn in 1912. At this time she lived with her mother 
— once an inmate of an insane hospital — and a brother obviously 
feeble-minded. Nearby lived a married sister, also defective, whose 
husband, feeble-minded and alcoholic, she claimed was the father of 
the dead child. She was adjudged feeble-minded and in immediate 
need of custodial care, and was committed to a State hospital. Ralph, 
who could not get beyond the first grade, remained with his grand¬ 
mother for a while, but soon became uncontrollable. Finally, after 
he set fire to his home, he was committed to the State Board of 
Charity. 

A Drooling Idiot 9. Rose is an idiot who can neither feed nor 
dress herself. She sits all day rocking vio¬ 
lently, drooling, and making unintelligible sounds. After her mother 
died of tuberculosis she was cared for by her father, also defective, 
and her grandmother. But as the grandmother grew feeble it be¬ 
came necessary to provide some other home for the girl and she 
was committed to a State hospital. 

A Diseased 10. Lily has long been known as a woman of 

Prostitute doubtful character. Her husband, a worth¬ 

less fellow, deserted her years ago and has 
since served a jail sentence. Lily used to frequent the freight yards 
at night and showed a mania for the company of men. She told 
indifferently of five miscarriages and abortions. Three years ago 
she again became pregnant. When asked how many men she had 
had relations with she said she “could not say, there were so many”, 
On examination she was found to be feeble-minded and badly diseased, 
and after the stillbirth of her baby she was committed to a State 
hospital. 

In Trouble as 11. Helen, now twenty-three, has been a State 
Soon as Paroled charge off and on since eleven, when she was 
committed to the Industrial School. After 
her release she made herself conspicuous on the streets picking up 
strange men and inviting indecent attentions, until the necessity for 


custodial care became evident and she was committed to a State 
hospital. In 1911 she was paroled, but in four weeks became preg¬ 
nant. Since then she has been cared for in various State hospitals. 
A few months ago, however, she was again paroled and immediately 
became pregnant, and found her way into an almshouse, from which 
she was returned to the hospital. She is not insane, but feeble¬ 
minded and immoral, and has a feeble-minded sister in Waverley. 

Of Eleven Children 12. Susie C-, feeble-minded and immoral, 

Eight are Defective was committed last year to a State hospital as 
Nine are the only means available of protecting the com- 

State Wards munity from her degradation and disease. Both 

her parents were high-grade imbeciles and her 
father epileptic and immoral as well. All her brothers and sisters 
showed evidence of feeble-mindedness or epilepsy. One sister has had 
two illegitimate children, for whom she claims her father is respon¬ 
sible. A brother is now in the State Hospital for Epileptics. Susie has 
been married three times. Her first husband, an alcoholic man, sixty- 
five years old when they were married, divorced her for immorality. 
The oldest of their six children was conceived out of wedlock. All 
of them have been committed to the State for neglect: Bertha at 
eleven was sent to Waverley and later, developing epilepsy, to the 
State Hospital for Epileptics at Monson, where she is carefully 
guarded on account of her immoral tendencies; Maggie, whose 
defective eyesight and stupidity make community life impossible, gave 
early evidence of epilepsy and is also at Monson; one is in high school, 
apparently normal; two others, still in the community, are considered 
slow and peculiar; one has died. After her divorce Susie lived with 

JimD-, a town “bum”, alcoholic and shiftless. After bearing two 

children she discovered that he had a wife living and turned him out 
of the house. These two children, now seven and ten, have also 
been committed to the State, and the older one, pronounced feeble¬ 
minded, is awaiting admission to Wrentham or Waverley. 

Finally, five years ago, Susie, then thirty-seven, married Guy 

W-, a feeble-minded youth of twenty, whose brothers and sisters 

have been in the care of the State for many years, with records of 
immorality and delinquency. The story told of their marriage is 
that he and his father played a game of cards for the woman and he 
won. They have had three children, but the first, a boy, choked to 
death in infancy. Last year the family were found living in condi¬ 
tions of indescribable filth, — a room reeking with kerosene from an 
incubator and foul with flies, a litter of cats in a corner, the bed 
without sheets or pillow cases, and the mattress as black and shiny 
as coal. Both parents were brought into court on a charge of neglect. 
The little girl, three years old, but still unable to walk, was com¬ 
mitted to the State, the mother at last given custodial care at a 
State hospital, and the father ordered to pay the board of the baby 
in a foster home. Failing in this he is now serving a sentence of eight 
months in the House of Correction, so that at last the State has had 
to care, not only for the woman, but for her husband and eight 
defective children as well, because it did not recognize her need in 
time and provide custodial care for her as a preventive measure. 




IV. Feeble-minded in the Massachusetts 
Training Schools 


Institution 

Lyman School for Boys, 

Capacity 

Daily Average 
Population 
During 1915 

Committable* 
Feeble-minded 
March. 1915 

Percent 
of Pop. 

Westborough . . 
Industrial School 

for 

413 

442 

25 

5.6 

Boys, Shirley . . 
Industrial School 

for 

240 

244 

20 

8.2 

Girls, Lancaster . 


299 

281 

48 

fl9.1 

Total. 


952 

967 

93 



Besides the committable feeble-minded, 28% of the girls 
at Lancaster are classed as “defective and border-line” types, 
30% at the Lyman School are reported as “ morons ”, and 60% 
at Shirley are considered “subnormal”. Routine mental tests 
are given only at the Industrial School for Girls. These 
figures, therefore, represent the superintendents’ estimates. 

It will be seen that Lyman and Shirley are both over¬ 
crowded and Lancaster well filled, yet to all three institutions 
defectives are committed because other provision for their care 
is lacking, and various delinquencies, particularly lying and 
stealing and sex perversion — characteristic traits of many of 
the feeble-minded — make community life impossible. The 
following instances illustrate the problem with wayward girls: 


Crippled and 13. Ethel’s mother is a hard-working woman 

Immoral who practically supports herself and her four 

girls, but has little control over them. The 
father, feeble-minded, degenerate, and foul-mouthed, accuses his 
wife of immorality, but he is believed to have had sexual relations 
with fourteen year old Clara. When Ethel was seventeen she began 
staying out late nights and soliciting the attention of men and boys. 
Finally, despite the fact that she is feeble-minded, she was com¬ 
mitted to the Industrial School, Waverley and Wrentham being 
crowded. From there she was released last year, following the 
amputation of a diseased limb, and is now living at home. The 
last reports show that the house is used as an evil resort and that 
Ethel and her sisters are living promiscuously, a terrible menace to 
the men and boys of the town. 

♦This term is applied to cases which physicians certify and courts recognize as a type suitable 
or commitment to special institutions for the feeble-minded. 

fBased on a total of 249 tested. 







A Girl of the 14. When pretty, sixteen year old Josie had an 
Street illegitimate baby her father drove her from 

home and she came to Boston and found work 
in a restaurant of doubtful reputation. Here she continued to 
lead an immoral life, hanging around the car barns at night and 
inviting sexual attentions. She confesses to immoral relations 
with many different men. Finally she was brought into court, and 
after an examination which showed she was feeble-minded, she was 

sent to the Industrial School for protection. In X-, Josie has a 

sister who has led very much the same life and now has two 
illegitimate children. 

A Neighborhood 15. Nellie and Mollie, two pretty sisters, 
“Tough” sixteen and fourteen years old respectively, 

were arrested for stealing. Their father is 
dead and their mother living an immoral life. Jack, an older brother, 
has spent some time in the Parental School, and Julia, only eleven, 
has earned money immorally. Nellie, who has bleached her hair, 
thereby earning the nickname “Blondy”, is considered a “regular 
tough” in the neighborhood, throwing rotten vegetables at children 
on the street, stealing first from hucksters and later from department 
stores, and consorting with men and boys of bad reputation. She is 
feeble-minded and syphilitic and in need of permanent custodial care. 
Since Waverley and Wrentham were full, she was committed to the 
Industrial School, where she can remain only until she is twenty-one. 
Her sisters were committed to the State Board of Charity. 

All of these girls must be discharged at twenty-one, and 
unless State provision for the feeble-minded is immediately 
increased they must return to unprotected community life. 


V. Feeble-minded in Prisons and Reformatories 

Nothing is more manifestly unjust than to imprison or 
otherwise punish the feeble-minded for crimes for which, by 
the very nature of their defect, they are not responsible. Yet 
many defectives without custodial care live in frequent viola¬ 
tion of the law. They are the victims of poverty, disease, and 
chronic alcoholism. Their strong passions, clouded judgment, 
and weak will power drive them to wild and destructive out¬ 
breaks against property rights and to heinous crimes against 
their fellows. Society in self-protection and in lieu of a 
better method commits the criminal feeble-minded to 
prisons and reformatories for punishment and segregation. 
This is not only unfair but useless and costly, for in a few 
months or a few years they obtain release, only to perpetrate 
new crimes. 



State Prison. At the request of the Massachusetts Prison 
Commission, the State Board of Insanity has undertaken, 
during the past year, an investigation at the Charlestown 
Prison to determine the number of defective individuals con¬ 
fined there. This work was begun by Dr. A. Warren Stearns 
and continued by Mr. C. S. Rossy. Of the first three hun¬ 
dred cases examined 22% were feeble-minded — 9.6% border 
line. All of these feeble-minded are committable cases if 
there were only adequate provision in the State for their 
care. The investigation has already shown that the highest 
per cent of feeble-minded subjects is found among prisoners 
guilty of sex offenses, another urgent reason for permanent 
segregation. 

Reformatory for Women. There were 305 prisoners at the 
Reformatory for Women, September 30, 1915, besides 33 
babies. The daily average during the past year was 333. 
These women are given careful mental examinations by the 
prison physician, Dr. Edith R. Spaulding. Of 500 recently 
tested, 16% were definitely feeble-minded and committable, 
while 29% more were subnormal. 

Massachusetts Reformatory. At the Massachusetts Reforma¬ 
tory Dr. Guy Fernald has made similar studies among the men. 
In a group of 657, the feeble-minded numbered 136 or 20.7%. 

Since many of the feeble-minded suffer from various 
nervous defects their presence in prisons and reformatories 
creates exceedingly difficult disciplinary problems, for the 
other inmates are quick to imitate their destructive and 
hysterical tendencies. Moreover these institutions are designed 
to give discipline and training to delinquents of normal men¬ 
tality as a preparation for return to community life. The 
feeble-minded, who are in need of permanent custodial care, 
cannot respond to this disciplinary training, and become 
drudges or incorrigibles. Hence, in buildings of the con¬ 
gregate type, where separation of the two groups is impossible, 
both suffer from the contact. The following examples show 
the types of feeble-mindedness found in these reformatories: 

In Prison for 16 . For more than twenty years the W- 

Sodomy, Now family have been aided by Overseers and 

Free various private charities. The father deserted, 

and the mother, considered mentally deficient 
by her relatives, has worked irregularly and tried to support herself 
and John, her only child. Her source of income, however, is obscure, 


and she is believed to be immoral and addicted to the use of drugs. 
The home is filthy and disreputable. For many years John attended 
ungraded and special classes in the public school, but he could not 
learn and his teachers were afraid to have him with the younger 
children. Always feeble-minded, as he grew older he developed 
vicious tendencies. When he was sixteen he was arrested for larceny 
and sodomy, and sentenced to the Massachusetts Reformatory. 
Now he has finished his time, and since there is no present means 
of giving him custodial care, he has gone back to the old life in a 
congested tenement district, where his presence brings imminent 
peril to the children and young girls of the neighborhood. 

Without Sense of 17. Lena, half clothed and dirty, was found 
Right and Wrong living in S- with her two filthy, foul¬ 

smelling, nearly naked children, three and 
seven. Her relatives are known in the district as a “hard lot”, worth¬ 
less and degenerate. Most of the younger generation are State wards. 
Her husband is feeble-minded and alcoholic and has deserted her 
several times. Twice he has been arrested for larceny. For several 

years she has lived with a man named B-, about sixty-five years 

old, alcoholic and abusive, though she said “as far as she knew they 
were not married”. She thinks the children belong to her husband, 

but is not sure; nor is she sure that this man B-is the one with 

whom she originally lived, — it may have been his brother. Some¬ 
times he calls the children his, sometimes his brother’s, and some¬ 
times her husband’s. She was taken into court on a neglect com¬ 
plaint, pronounced feeble-minded, and committed to the Reformatory 
for Women. The two children were put in the care of the State 
Board of Charity. 

Lived in Incest 18. When the five younger T - children 

for Three Years were committed to the State, after their 
mother’s death, Mattie, a slovenly, feeble¬ 
minded girl of fifteen, remained with her father. He is alcoholic, 
immoral, and abusive, and never made a decent home for the girl. 
She boarded with him, sharing his single room and submitting to 
immoral intercourse, for over three years. Finally she became 
infatuated with a boy of her own age with whom she had illicit 
relations and with whom she finally ran away. When she was 
apprehended by the police she was committed to the Women’s 
Reformatory, with the understanding that she should be transferred 
to Wrentham as soon as a vacancy occurred. 


VI. Feeble-minded in the County Training 
Schools 

Massachusetts now maintains five County Training Schools 
for truant boys, the Suffolk County Training School having 
been closed during 1914. Nearly all of the boys committed to 
these schools are behind their grades, probably many are 





feeble-minded. No exact data is available, for mental examina¬ 
tions are not made, but these two illustrations will serve to 
show the types frequently found: 

A Defective 19. Elmer and Jacob are twelve and fifteen. 

Family Both are feeble-minded and will probably never 

develop beyond nine years mentally. This 
seems the more certain because they come of defective stock. Their 
mother is a woman of low-grade intelligence, who had two illegitimate 
daughters before her marriage, both of whom are feeble-minded. 
Their father, a heavy drinker, has served three years for the rape of 
Alice, the older of these girls, then twelve years old. His own boys 
he has abused and driven from home repeatedly. Both are uncon¬ 
trollable, and Jacob has a long record of truancy. Finally he was 
committed to the Middlesex County Training School. Last year 
he was paroled, but was soon brought into court for breaking and 
entering and was returned to custody. His brother was also involved 
in the charge and both boys are in need of permanent custodial care. 

Homeless, Help- 20. When Francis was twelve he was sent to 
less, and Criminal the Worcester County Training School for per¬ 
sistent truancy. He is feeble-minded and 
doctors say he will never be able to work or take care of himself. His 
parents are separated and neither can give him the home and pro¬ 
tection he needs. At the Training School he is very troublesome 
and has a mania for stealing and hiding things. 

County Training Schools, like the State Industrial 
Schools, can give only temporary care to the feeble-minded. 
At sixteen years the defectives as well as the normal are 
automatically discharged and must be reabsorbed by the 
community. 

VII. Feeble-minded in Town and City Almshouses 

There are 172 almshouses in the State, with an aggregate 
population of 5,007. For 1915 the State Board of Charity 
reports the following figures: 

TOTAL OF DEFECTIVE INMATES IN 160 ALMSHOUSES 


Mentally Defective. 502 

Epileptic. 49 

Cripples. 580 

Blind. 138 

Mentally Defective and Crippled. 44 

Blind and Cripple. 3 








Deaf and Dumb. 

Mentally Defective and Blind . . . . 
Mentally Defective and Epileptic . . 

Epileptic and Cripple. 

Mentally Defective, Blind, and Cripple 
Mentally Defective and Deformed . 

Blind, Deaf, and Dumb. 

Mentally Defective and Dumb . . . 
Total. 


4 

6 

2 

1 
1 
1 

2 

1,338 


Of these a total of 560 are classed as mentally defective and with 
few exceptions are feeble-minded. Mental tests would doubt¬ 
less reveal many more feeble-minded and border-line cases. 
Some of the feeble-minded are of the so-called “almshouse 
type” (dependents — low grade and passive), but the majority 
cannot be properly cared for in these local institutions. Segre¬ 
gation of the sexes is difficult in the smaller homes. Another 
difficulty is the superintendents’ lack of authority to hold 
even the worst defectives in permanent custody, for the 
almshouse door swings outward as well as inward. There¬ 
fore, the feeble-minded drift in and out, bear their children, 
receive medical and hospital care, secure the adoption or 
placement of their babies, and return to the community 
to repeat in a year or two the same experience. Even where 
the authorities are able to hold them pending commitment, 
they frequently exert an unfavorable influence on the other 
inmates and by failing to adapt themselves to ordinary con¬ 
ditions of life furnish grave problems of discipline. 

The following instances are illustrative of the type for whom 
almshouse care must often be sought in the absence of other 
means of segregation: 


Prostitute in 21. Myrtle has had two illegitimate babies. 

Almshouse for She is a bold-looking girl of twenty-one, but 

Confinement has little more intelligence than a child of nine. 

Her mother is an ignorant woman of weak 
mentality who can neither read nor write. Her father is a drunkard 
who beats his family and has what they term “queer streaks”; 
recently he has deserted. Myrtle has had immoral relations since 
she was eleven or twelve. Her first child was born to a degenerate, 
her second to a drunkard of twenty-two who spends most of his time 
in the House of Correction. She has been sent to the local almshouse 
for confinement. 









Threatens to Kill 22. The father of the R-family is dead. 

Her Baby The mother, an illegitimate child herself, is 

considered a high-grade defective. She is 
incapable of caring for her home and family. Of seven children only 
one is normal. Clyde, twenty-six years of age, became “ queer ” and 
unreliable after his father’s death, and in 1909 was committed to a 
State hospital, where his mental condition has rapidly deteriorated. 
Gus, eighteen, is self-willed and unmanagable. His teachers con¬ 
sidered him feeble-minded, but since he could not be admitted to 
Waverley or Wrentham he was sent to the Parental School. Timothy, 
also defective, has been placed in the care of the State Board of 
Charity; and Eddie, deformed, backward in school, and extremely 
cruel, admitted to Wrentham in 1912. The two girls, now twenty 
and twenty-two, are feeble-minded and immoral. Pearl, cruel and 
abusive to the younger children, was subject to constant temptation 
from immoral neighbors. She was finally placed in an almshouse and 
later committed to Wrentham. Louise, for whom there was no 
vacancy at Wrentham, was also sent to the almshouse, where she gave 
birth to an illegitimate child. She is sexually uncontrollable and 
violent, and has threatened to kill the baby, and the almshouse 
authorities feel they cannot keep her. 

Too Troublesome 23. When Cassie was twenty-five she gave 
to Keep in the birth to an illegitimate baby. She thought the 
Almshouse father was a chauffeur named Tom who had 

given her money off and on, or a man whom she 
met at a revival meeting, but whose name she does not know. She 
was sent to the City Almshouse, where the doctors pronounced her 
low-grade feeble-minded and committable. Since there was no 
vacancy at Wrentham or Waverley, she remained at the infirmary 
for over a year. She was so troublesome, however, that it became 
impossible to keep her there and she was finally transferred to a 
State hospital. Her baby is still in the almshouse. 

A Physical and 24. Nineteen year old Greta is a marked 
Moral Degenerate defective, with cleft palate and other marks 
of degeneration. Her mother and step¬ 
father, who is tubercular, occupy a couple of basement rooms which 
reek with the odor of liquor and foul air. Six or seven years ago she 
was known to the Juvenile Court as a neglected child and was placed 
in various institutions. Two years ago she was in the Municipal 
Court for night-walking and was sent to a reformatory. Last year 
she became pregnant and was taken to the almshouse, where a baby 
girl was born. The alleged father is a sailor whose name and address 
Greta cannot recall. She and her baby are being held at the alms¬ 
house because there is no more suitable place ready to receive her and 
she is too feeble-minded to return to the community. 

VIII. Feeble-minded in the Community 
Unprotected 

The group of defectives temporarily sheltered in public in¬ 
stitutions is simply representative of the many thousand unpro- 



tected feeble-minded in the community, the prey of poverty, 
disease, and crime. Unable to hold their work these unfor¬ 
tunates drift into the ranks of the unemployed. Sexually 
unrestrained they breed nearly twice as many children as the 
normal, a large number of whom are illegitimate. Sinking 
from immorality into promiscuity and prostitution they soon 
contract disease and become sources of moral and physical 
contamination. They are easy victims of drink, which robs 
them of all self-control and incites them to sensuality, abuse, 
and crime. And all this weight of social misery and mental 
and physical deformity they bequeath to their children and 
their children’s children. 

In their behalf all of the resources of the community are 
taxed. They are aided year after year by overseers and private 
charities. Their children are clothed and fed, put in special 
classes in the schools, boarded in foster homes, or committed 
to the care of the State. Maternity homes, hospitals, and 
dispensaries care freely for the pregnant and diseased, and the 
Juvenile and Municipal Courts, unable to secure permanent 
custodial care for the delinquents, place them on probation 
and follow them year after year until some more flagrant out¬ 
break remands them to reformatory or prison. In all of this 
work the private charities bear a share, and the following 
instances show the magnitude of the problem against which 
they are struggling: 

Filth and Disease 25. Jessie, now twenty-two, belongs to a 
Go Hand in Hand defective family, poverty-stricken and diseased, 
whose home was so filthy that it was described as 
“unfit for animals”. Two of her grandparents, her father and mother 
and three younger sisters, died of tuberculosis. Her mother was 
probably insane as well. Some years ago an older sister was trans¬ 
ferred from the Industrial School to Waverley. She is an imbecile 
with the mentality of a child of seven. Another sister, apparently 
bright, has had syphilis from birth and has lost the use of one eye. Of 
her twin brother little is known, except his marriage to an immoral 
girl, already the mother of two illegitimate children. Jessie’s little 
baby was born last year. When she was found to be feeble-minded it 
was taken by the city and she was sent to a home to await a vacancy 
in Wrentham. 

A Deaf Mute 26. Lola is a deaf mute eighteen years old who 

the Prey of has been motherless for many years. Last 

Street Gangs year she became pregnant and was radiant 

when told that she was to have a baby. Her 
immorality began when she was fifteen. In the neighborhood she 
had the reputation of being promiscuous, and was well known to 


various street gangs, about fifty members of which — at one time or 
another — had had relations with her. Last year she and three other 
deaf girls went regularly each evening to a certain lodging house 
where four men roomed and had intercourse with them. Lola did not 
know their names nor could she tell which was the father of the 
coming child. She is a low-grade defective, and is now in a maternity 
home awaiting confinement, after which an effort will be made to 
secure her admission to Wrentham. 

Now in a 27. TheM-s have a bad name. The father 

Maternity a hard drinker, is unspeakably depraved. 

Home Several times he has deserted his family and 

when he is home he abuses them cruelly. The 
stepmother is ignorant and dirty. ^ The home is wretched. For years 
the family have been aided by the Overseers and by various charitable 
organizations. Positions were found for Susie and Jessie, the two 
oldest girls, now seventeen and eighteen. After stealing money and 
various articles of clothing, Jessie stopped work and expects to be 
married soon. Susie is so slovenly and forgetful that she cannot keep 
a position. She is a low-grade defective, with strong passions which 
she cannot control. A foster home was found for her pending admis¬ 
sion to Wrentham, but the protection came too late. She is pregnant 
and confesses to immoral relations w r ith various men for the past year. 
She is now in a maternity home. If a place cannot be found for her 
in Waverley or Wrentham she must drift back again into the 
community. 

A Juvenile 28. Marie is a pretty girl of eighteen. 

Court Problem Her father, arrested for carrying concealed 

weapons, for assault on his wife, and finally for 
larceny, was sent to the House of Correction for three years, and later 
transferred to the prison camp for tuberculosis. After his release he 
returned to Italy, where he has another wife. Her mother has been 
arrested for keeping a liquor nuisance. For years men have visited 
the house for immoral purposes. Marie was brought into the Juvenile 
Court three years ago for waywardness. In a foster home, where she 
was placed for observation, she stole everything of which she could 
possess herself, lied and talked obscenely. She told dirty stories to 
children, and related how her mother had forced her to sodomy with 
one of their lodgers. She was pronounced feeble-minded and placed 
on probation, with the understanding that she should go to Wrentham 
as soon as there was a vacancy. For a while she seemed to improve, 
but recently she has become unmanagable again, staying out late 
nights and annoying men with her attentions. 

A Deaf and Dumb 29. John C-is described as an ‘ ‘ugly brute”. 

Imbecile Who shiftless, drunken, and abusive. He has been 
Escaped from the arrested again and again on various charges, — 
Almshouse once for shooting a man, — and is reputed to 

make his living by stealing. Old lumber shacks 
are the only homes he has ever provided for his family. His first wife, 
a half-witted girl, died in childbirth. Her three children have all 




died, one — a healthy baby of three months — having been found 
dead in bed under peculiar circumstances. His second wife, an 
imbecile, is deaf and dumb. In 1912 he was sent to the House of 
Correction for cruel and abusive treatment, the two older children, 
also of low mentality, were committed to the State Board of Charity, 
and the mother and newborn baby were taken to the State Infirmary. 
Later she was transferred to the local almshouse and commitment 
papers were made out to Wrentham. Before she could be received, 
through the connivance of her husband and his friends, she escaped. 
Last year, however, she and her husband were found living together 
in the woods in a broken-down, windowless shack constructed of 
scraps of old corrugated iron. A bunk scarcely large enough for one 
person, covered with unspeakable rags, an old stove, a table with 
dirty dishes, and two or three chairs comprised the furnishings. At 
the last report the man was again in jail for assault and battery. 

Feeble-minded and 30. Belle, a defective, twenty-three years old, 
Immoral Girl has had two illegitimate children and several 

Allowed to Marry abortions. She is sexually promiscuous and 
has lived with colored as well as white men. 
Commitment to Wrentham or Waverley being impossible, she was 
arrested for lewd and lascivious cohabitation, given a suspended 
sentence to the Reformatory for Women, and placed with a sister 
for her second confinement. Later it was discovered that this sister 
had been in the Reformatory two or three times. After the baby’s 
birth and adoption the case against the mother was dropped. Last 
June she was married to a young soda fountain clerk. 


THE IMMEDIATE NEED FOR INCREASED PROVISION 
FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED 


T HE unsuitability of hospital, almshouse, and penal care 
for the feeble-minded is evident from the foregoing 
illustrations. These institutions have their own problems 
to meet which tax them to their full capacity. The presence 
of the feeble-minded introduces an element subversive to their 
discipline and to the routine of their work. Those of normal 
mentality, whether in almshouse or prison, resent enforced 
contact with the feeble-minded, and are likely to suffer moral 
and physical contamination from daily association. On the 
other hand, defectives who fail in the community because of 
their inability to meet normal standards of life fail from 
similar cause in these institutions. The training and instruc¬ 
tion given the others is beyond their grasp, and instead of 
progressing they deteriorate in capacity and become restless 
and uncontrollable. Their handicap, which absolves them 
from responsibility for overt acts, makes any prison sentence 
unjust to them and to their families, on whom it lays a heavy 



stigma. And finally, in none of these institutions, save the in¬ 
sane hospitals, already overcrowded, can the permanent 
custody be given which is so essential to the welfare of the 
individual defective and the State. To protect the State from 
this drifting menace, a third school for the feeble-minded 
is immediately needed. 

The financial cost of caringfor the feeble-minded in hospitals, 
reformatories, etc., must also be reckoned. No more costly 
method could be devised than the present system which allows 
them to drift in and out of these institutions which are equipped 
for the care of other groups. The following table shows the 
cost for maintenance in the various State institutions: 

NET WEEKLY PER CAPITA COST OF MAINTENANCE 
FOR 1915 FOR INMATES IN STATE INSTITUTIONS 


Hospitals for the Insane: 

Worcester State Hospital. $4.88 

Taunton State Hospital. 4.74 

Northampton State Hospital . 4.19 

Danvers State Hospital. 4.67 

Westborough State Hospital. 5.12 

Boston State Hospital (including Psychopathic 

Department) . 5.82 

Grafton State Hospital. 4.59 

Medfield State Hospital. 4.41 

Foxborough State Hospital. 6.70 

Gardner State Colony . 4.19 

State Infirmary . 3.72 

Massachusetts Training Schools: 

Lyman School for Boys. 5.75 

Industrial School for Boys. 8.58 

Industrial School for Girls. 6.96 

Prisons: 

Charlestown State Prison. 3.65 

Reformatory for Women, Sherborn. 5.19 

Massachusetts Reformatory, Concord .... 5.59 

County Training Schools: 

Essex County Training School . 5.44 

Hampden County Training School .... 3.07 

Middlesex County Training School. 5.77 

Norfolk, Bristol, and Plymouth Union . . . 4.33 

Worcester County Training School. 4.94 





















State Schools for the Feeble-minded: 

Massachusetts School for the Feeble-minded . 3.68 

Wrentham State School . 4.20 

This table makes it clear that the weekly per capita cost 
for maintenance of either Waverley or Wrentham is low com¬ 
pared with the average for any other group. This lower 
cost is also an argument for the immediate segregation of 
the feeble-minded in State schools rather than in hospitals 
or reformatories. 

During 1915 the expenses of the State of Massachusetts 
(excluding all local expenditure) were $19,954,474. Of this, 
$6,266,210 was spent for State charities, $1,389,766 for re¬ 
formatory and correctional institutions, and $505,207 for the 
construction and improvement of public buildings involved in 
this work. That is, a total of $8,161,183 or 40.9% of the 
annual budget went for the maintenance and care of the 
unfortunate. The foregoing cases show one group for whom 
the State is already using large sums from this appropriation 
for ineffective, temporary care and relief. But this is not all. 
Until prevention is the keynote of the State’s policy in dealing 
with the feeble-minded, the cost of such care will increase 
year by year at a faster rate than the population increases, 
because their feeble-mindedness is hereditary and their birth¬ 
rate is nearly twice that of the normal. A comprehensive plan, 
therefore, for the segregation of all unprotected feeble-minded 
is necessary to check this futile and growing expenditure. 

Massachusetts now has two schools for the feeble-minded. 
On November 30, 1915, the State Board of Insanity reported 
2,756 feeble-minded receiving care : 


Institution 

Massachusetts School for the 

M. 

Feeble- 

p. 

Total 

minded, Waverley. 

. . . . 1,018 

603 

1,621 

Wrentham State School .... 

. . . . 371 

468 

839 

Elm Hill Private School .... 

. . . . 38 

11 

49 

Almshouses. 

. . . . 112 

122 

234 

Smaller Private Institutions . . 

. . . 5 

8 

13 

Total. 

. . . . 1,544 

1,212 

2,756 

Since the close of the fiscal year the numbers have shifted 
slightly. 

Waverley. On March 15th Waverley had a 

total 

enroll- 

ment of 1,705. Since the capacity of the School 

is but 1,513, 












this represents an excess population of 192, or 12.6%. Accord¬ 
ing to present standards of care, 1,500 represents the largest 
number of feeble-minded who can be provided for economi¬ 
cally and advantageously in a single administrative group. 
YVaverley, therefore, represents a completed unit and should 
not be further enlarged. Instead, through adequate accom¬ 
modation elsewhere it should be possible to reduce the enroll¬ 
ment, maintaining an average population of 1,500. This would 
eliminate the present overcrowding and congestion and make 
possible maximum efficiency in care and training. The present 
congestion not only entails physical discomfort, for the children 
have had to sleep on benches and on mattresses on the floor, 
but hampers the service in every department and constitutes 
a serious menace to the safety of all in case of epidemic or fire. 

Wrentham. The Wrentham State School, with the com¬ 
pletion of its hospital buildings this spring, has accommoda¬ 
tions for 1,110. Its enrollment March 15th was 1,042. Admis¬ 
sions are made as rapidly as the buildings are completed. 
Assuming a desirable working unit of 1,500 Wrentham should 
have a steady expansion. This year the State Board of 
Insanity asks funds for the construction of a dormitory pro¬ 
viding one hundred and five new beds. This increased pro¬ 
vision, if granted, will simply permit of a development propor¬ 
tional to the growing numbers who each year need such 
care. It will serve less than one fourth of those now awaiting 
admission and will not, therefore, alleviate general conditions 
or afford protection for the feeble-minded of western 
Massachusetts. 

The Waiting List. The pressure of the feeble-minded on 
the State institutions is indicated by the waiting lists. About 
400 applications for admission are on file at Waverley, 456 
at Wrentham. The dates of many extend back for several 
years. Some for whom application was made have died; some 
have moved out of the State. Other names that would have 
swelled the list have been withdrawn because of the impos¬ 
sibility of awaiting a vacancy. For many more who are in 
immediate need of custodial care no application has been 
made because of the hopelessness of securing admission. 
Their names, therefore, do not appear on either waiting list. 
The fact that there are today 856 names on the waiting 
lists at Waverley and Wrentham is alone sufficient to show 
the immediate need of a third school for the feeble-minded 
in Massachusetts. 


CONCLUSION 


I N all, then, there are about 15,000 feeble-minded in 
Massachusetts. Less than 3,000 are receiving care in 
Waverley and Wrentham. Of the remaining 12,000 many 
are protected in good homes. Another group are sexually 
passive, industrially competent, and capable of adjusting them¬ 
selves to community standards. For neither class is State 
segregation necessary nor desirable. Approximately 2,000, 
however, can always be found in other public institutions. 
Those committed to insane hospitals are usually held in per¬ 
manent custody; the others drift in and out of almshouses, 
prisons, and reformatories. These 2,000, therefore, a constantly 
shifting group, represent many thousand unprotected feeble¬ 
minded in the community, for whom custodial care is essential. 

The development of State schools for the segregation of the 
feeble-minded meets the requirements of economy, justice, 
and efficiency. Their per capita cost for maintenance is less 
than that of other institutions. They furnish a simple environ¬ 
ment which is adapted to the needs of defectives and which 
enables them to live happily on their own plane. They offer 
specialized industrial training which renders many of the 
inmates wholly or partially self-supporting within the institu¬ 
tion, transforming them from demoralizing and destructive 
forces into productive members of the State. They furnish 
protection both to society and to the feeble-minded, for 
whom community life means danger and exploitation. And 
finally, by permanent segregation, they prevent the procrea¬ 
tion of a new generation of defectives, thus cutting off at the 
source one of the greatest of social ills and striking at the 
root of the physical and moral degeneracy, pauperism and 
misery, alcoholism and crime, with which feeble-mindedness is 
inevitably linked. 

The appropriation of $150,000 this year for the erection 
of the first buildings for the new school for the feeble¬ 
minded, therefore, is the best investment the State of 
Massachusetts could make for the alleviation and control 
of a pressing evil, and for the protection of future generations. 









